kspere.

[MACBETH. _Scene 7._

'Thus even-handed justice
_Commends_ the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips.'

COR. proposes, _Returns_ the ingredients of, &c.; and, after the word
_returns_ is placed a comma; which, however, I suppose to be a press
oversight, and no element in the correction. Meantime, I see no call for any
change whatever. The ordinary use of the word _commend_, in any advantageous
introduction of a stranger by letters, seems here to maintain
itself--namely, placing him in such a train towards winning favour as may
give a favourable bias to his opportunities. The opportunities are not left
to their own casual or neutral action, but are armed and pointed towards a
special result by the influence of the recommender. So, also, it is here
supposed that amongst several chalices, which might else all have an equal
power to conciliate notice, one specially--namely, that which contains the
poison--is armed by Providence with a power to bias the choice, and commend
itself to the poisoner's favour.

[_Ibid._

'His two chamberlains
Will I with wine and wassail so _convince_.'

COR. is not happy at this point in his suggestion: tinkers are accused
(often calumniously, for tinkers have enemies as well as other people) of
insidiously enlarging holes, making simple into compound fractures, and
sometimes of planting two holes where they find one. But I have it on the
best authority--namely, the authority of three tinkers who were
unanimous--that, if sometimes there is a little treachery of this kind
amongst the profession, it is no more than would be pronounced 'in reason'
by all candid men. And certainly, said one of the three, you wouldn't look
for perfection in a tinker? Undoubtedly a seraphic tinker would be an
unreasonable postulate; though, perhaps, the man in all England that came
nearest to the seraphic character in one century _was_ a tinker--namely,
John Bunyan. But, as my triad of tinkers urged, men of all professions _do_
cheat at uncertain times, _are_ traitors in a small proportion, _must be_
perfidious, unless they make an odious hypocritical pretension to the
character of angels. That tinkers are not alone in their practice of
multiplying the blemishes on which their healing art is invoked, seems
broadly illustrated by the practice of verbal critics. Those who have
applied themselves to the ancient classics, are notorious